Perley's reminiscences of sixty years in the national metropolis, v. 1-2

by Benjamin Perley Poore

There was no dancing, nor was it generally known that after the invitations had been issued Mrs. Lincoln's children sickened, and she had been up the two nights previous to the reception watching with them. Both the President and Mrs. Lincoln left the gay throng several times to go up and see their darling Willie, who passed away a fortnight afterward. He was a fine-looking lad, eleven years of age, whose intelligence and vivacity made him a general favorite. Some of his exercises in literary composition had been so creditable that his father had permitted their publication. This bereavement made Mr. Lincoln and his wife very indulgent toward their youngest son, who thenceforth imperiously ruled at the White House.

Washington City profited by its encircling garrison of one hundred and fifty thousand men, and its population of civilians increased wonderfully. Previously the crowds of people who had flooded Washington at inauguration ceremonies, or during the sessions of Congress, had been of the quick-come, quick-go character almost exclusively. They had added nothing to the general business of the city, stopping altogether at hotels, and making no investments in the way of purchases. Even Congressmen had latterly very seldom brought their families to the Federal capital. But the representatives of the military power formed another class of citizens entirely. Unlike the representatives of the legislative power, who had treated their quarters in Washington as mere "tents of a night," the army had taken all the vacant houses in Washington. The fears of a bombardment by the rebels on the Potomac had the effect of keeping up prices of provisions and everything else. The residents of Washington experienced the evils of living in a non-manufacturing and non-producing country. The single-track railway to Baltimore was over-loaded by the army, and the freight depot in the city was crammed and piled with stuff of every description that it presented the appearance of about five hundred Noah's arks suddenly tumbled into a conglomerated heap.

With the army and its camp-followers, there came a number of literati to accept clerical positions in the Departments. At the Treasury one could see the veteran Dr. Pierpont, George Wood, O'Connor, Piatt, Chilton, and Dr. Elder, all hopefully engaged in signing, cutting, or recording Government notes and bonds. Entering the library of the State Department, one saw J. C. Derby, so long in the front rank of New York publishers, then Mr. Seward's librarian. On Pennsylvania Avenue was Fred Cozzens' store, to which Mr. Sparrowgrass had transported his Catawbas and Cabanas. At the White House one would perhaps meet N. P. Willis in the reception- room, and in Mr. Nicolay's up-stairs sanctum was John Hay, whose Atlantic papers were written with such purity of style and feeling at his desk as under-secretary to the President. Then, among women writers, there were Mesdames Don Piatt, Squier, Olmstead, and Kirkland. The Vermont sculptor, Larkin Meade, had his "Green Mountain Boy" on exhibition at a popular bookstore on the Avenue.

With this importation of Northern brains came a desire to hear lectures from prominent men, and Professor Henry was reluctantly induced to grant the use of the lecture hall of the Smithsonian Institution, with a promise that it should be announced that the Institution was not to be held responsible for what might be said. When the first lecture was given, the Rev. John Pierpont, after introducing the lecturer, added: "I am requested by Professor Henry, to announce that the Smithsonian Institution is not responsible for this course of lectures. I do so with pleasure, and desire to add that the Washington Lecture Association is not responsible for the Smithsonian Institution." The satire was appreciated and received with applause. Throughout the course Mr. Pierpont repeated his announcement before each weekly lecture, and no sooner would he say, "I am requested," then the large audience would applaud.

Isaac Newton, of Philadelphia, was placed at the head of the Agricultural Bureau of the Patent Office, by President Lincoln, and in due time he became the head of the newly created Department of Agriculture. He was an ignorant, credulous old gentleman, quite rotund around the waistband, with snow-white hair and a mild blue eye. Educated a Quaker, he had accumulated some property by keeping an ice-cream saloon in Philadelphia, and he then established a farm, from which he obtained his supplies of cream. At Washington he was known as "Sir Isaac," and many anecdotes were told at his expense. One year, when the expenditures of his department had been very great, and the Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture called on him to ascertain how he had used up so much money, Sir Isaac spluttered and talked learnedly, and at last concluded by saying: "Yes, sir; the expenses have been very great, exorbitant; indeed, sir, they have exceeded my most sanguine expectations." The Chairman was not satisfied. Looking over Sir Isaac's estimate for the year, it was found he had made requisition for five thousand dollars to purchase two hydraulic rams. "Them, gentlemen," said Sir Isaac, "are said to be the best sheep in Europe. I have seen a gentleman who knows all about them, and we should by all means secure the breed." Some wag had been selling Sir Isaac, and, much to his disgust, the Committee struck out the five-thousand-dollar item.

[Facsimile] S.P.Chase SALMON PORTLAND CHASE was born at Cornish, New Hampshire, January 13th, 1808; graduated at Dartmouth College in 1826; studied law at Washington with William Wirt, supporting himself by teaching school; commenced practice at Cincinnati in 1830; was United States Senator from Ohio, 1849-1853; was Governor of Ohio, 1855-1859; was again United States Senator, March 4th, 1861, and resigned the next day to become Secretary of the Treasury under President Lincoln, which position he held until he resigned in September, 1864; was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, December 6th, 1864; presided at the impeachment trial of President Johnson in 1866, and died at New York, May 7th, 1873.

CHAPTER XI. THE FORTUNES OF WAR.

With the war came the army correspondents. Dickens had previously introduced Martin Chuzzlewit to "our war correspondent, sir, Mr. Jefferson Brick," several years previously, but the warlike experiences of the redoubtable Mr. Brick were of a purely sedentary character, and his epistles were written at the home office. But Washington was now invaded by a corps of quick-witted, plucky young fellows, able to endure fatigue, brave enough to be under fire, and sufficiently well educated to enable them to dash off a grammatical and picturesque description of a skirmish.

Occasionally, one of them, by eulogizing a general in command, was enabled to go to the front as a gentleman, but generally they were proscribed and hunted out from camps like spies. Secretary Stanton bullied them, established a censorship at Washington, and occasionally imprisoned one, or stopped the publication of the paper with which he corresponded. Halleck denounced them as "unauthorized hangers- on," who should be compelled to work on the entrenchments if they did not leave his lines. General Meade was unnecessarily severe in his treatment of correspondents whose letters were not agreeable to him, although they contained "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." The result was that the correspondents were forced to hover around the rear of the armies, gathering up such information as they could, and then ride in haste to the nearest available telegraph station to send off their news. There were honorable and talented exceptions, but the majority of those who called themselves "war correspondents" were mere news- scavengers.

The Washington press was despotically governed during the war. The established censorship was under the direction of men wholly unqualified, and on several occasions the printed editions of influential journals—Republican or Democratic—were seized by Secretary Stanton for having published intelligence which he thought should have been suppressed. Bulletins were issued by the War Department, but they were often incorrect. It was known that the Washington papers, full of military information, were forwarded through the lines daily, yet the censors would not permit paragraphs clipped from those papers to be telegraphed to Boston or Chicago, where they could not appear sooner than they did in the Richmond papers. The declaration, "I am a newspaper correspondent," which had in former years carried with it the imposing force of the famous, "I am a Roman citizen," no longer entitled one to the same proud prerogatives, and journalists were regarded as spies and sneaks.